Whimsical Fuckery

Wherein we learn...

• HR Ladies are not to be trusted
• Oracle has its head up its butt
• Men with questionable fashion sense, social awkwardness, and a tendency to clutch their laptop case as if it is a shield are not always honest
• Never to mock the man in a "Lady Liberty" costume for a tax place, lest a worst fate befall ye
• And finally, a White Russian with lunch makes everything better...

Last Thursday, John was asked whether or not he would be attending an Oracle course taking place all week this week. John, having heard nothing of this before, said to Kathy, the HR Lady, "Send me an e-mail with the details, and I'll look it over and get in touch with Chris and Jerry."

Kathy, in her last appearance in this entry, forwarded the e-mail to John, and then apparently divided herself by zero, creating a black hole which sucked her in, forever leaving her fate unknown to the likes of mortal men.

John took one look at said e-mail and started laughing. The training, no joke, was entitled, "Oracle DBA 1: Preparing Yourself For the Oracle Experience". It was, in essence, an introduction to Oracle. John, with his many years of DBA experience, called Chris, his nominal boss, and advised him, "I took this course - over eight years ago. I don't need it."

Chris, the ever insightful boss, stated, "They're coming out with a new version of Oracle - 11! (That's ridiculous. It's not even funny.) You must take this course, it will teach you about all the new features."

John: "But I already know most of what this course is teaching. Surely they have a shorter course, explaining the differences between versions 11 and 9, the last version we purchased and are currently running."

Chris: "No. I must insist you take the course. Here's the link to download the e-kit you'll need to prepare for it. Enjoy the next week in training, sucker!" (Okay, perhaps not said, but definitely implied.)

So, John sends an e-mail to Kathy alerting her that he will, sadly, be attending this five-day training course, at a pittance of cost to the company - merely $3,000 a day paid to Oracle. Despite Chris's assurance that he has all the details, John receives nothing until Friday, mid-day.

The e-mail he finally receives gives him a download link, but no information on location or time for the course, nor does it have an event number - a rather minor detail which will become important the next week. John attempts to use the download link, but it fails - magnificently so, some might say. A support call is lodged with Oracle regarding this.

And here, we must take ourselves off on a tangent. John has worked mostly with Informix, including actually working for said company at one point in time. Informix had a policy that a minimum of 90% of technical support calls (including calls for their training classes, and questions) be answered in less than one minute. Compare that to John now waiting on hold for over 30 minutes, merely to reach an operator, who logs the issue and will see that it is followed up on. With no exact date for follow up, of course.

John and Shiny pass the weekend in merry gatherings, playing games, having some drinks, cleaning, writing, and watching movies. As Sunday evening looms closer and closer, John realizes he still has heard nothing back from Oracle - and his "training" is supposed to begin Monday morning, perhaps at 9 am. Or maybe it was 8 am. Or maybe 8:30 am. Some time in the morning. Somewhere. Possibly on Camelback Road. Or maybe Scottsdale Road. Or, it might have been an e-course. Surely Oracle will respond soon, and alert us.

An uneasy night is passed in pseudo-sleep, filled with the droning of the floor fans of the house. One of John's co-workers, Parvez the Good-Intentioned but MisInformed (henceforth to be called Parvez, because this is his only appearance in this story) calls John at oh dark thirty (also known as five in the fricking am, who the hell wakes up this early, why are you calling me, I swear to dog if you don't answer I'll crawl through this phone and strangle you with my bare hands) to inform him that he believes the training class is to take place in a building previously used by Oracle, at 32nd Street and Camelback. John grumbles back at him, almost hangs up, and then thinks better.

John: "So, it didn't say in the e-mail you got, either, huh?"

Parvez: "None of us are going to the course, John. Just you..."

John: "They're taking their senior DBA out of the office for a week for the likes of a refresher course, and a shitty one at that?"

Parvez: "Yeah, but it's not one week. It's two. Anyways, I'm going to bed. Night."

...

John and Shiny eventually fall back asleep, but are soon roused by various and sundry things, including a kitten named Squirrel crawling onto the pillow between their heads, yowling until they both wake up, and then proudly coughing up a hairball approximately the size of Tokyo. While John showers, Shiny marvels at the cat's many disgusting abilities, and starts a new load of laundry, since let's face it, no one wants to sleep on the hairball pillow.

At eight am, holding to the theory that he'll be shaved bald before he starts work prior to 8:30 am unless required to via a gun held to his head, John and Shiny load into the GhettoMobile and set out into downtown Phoenix to find this place of training. The drive there seems interminable - it is usually a five minute trip to drop John off at work, for Shiny. Now, she is suddenly in a car with him for 35 minutes, and has to be an interesting conversationalist early in the morning, with only the hairball pillow to discuss.

Nevertheless, the office building on Camelback and 32nd is reached, and John and Shiny create a plan. While Shiny waits outside in the car, John will check and ensure this is the proper location for the training course. She will wait ten minutes for him, before leaving, as if it is the wrong place, there will be much gnashing of teeth, and useless driving.

John enters the building, holding his laptop bag freely, and soon disappears within its tiny cubicled walls. Shiny, meanwhile, sits in the turned-off car, smoking and listening to her radio. The GhettoMobile's radio, as a side note, will turn off exactly ten minutes after the car is turned off, or when the driver's door opens, whichever comes first. Shiny is soon distracted by the latest bit of mail that was left in the car - another 25k in hospital bills she has no hopes of ever paying. She spends a few minutes reading the mail and snickering.

Shiny: "Take me to court? What are they going to garnish? I can't work because I can't get medical care! Ahahahaha, suckers. This bill will be perfect for firestarting at war."

Soon, however, Shiny realizes John has not reappeared, and the radio has gone off. It has been more than ten minutes. She sits dubious, not for the least reason because she is still wearing her pajama pants and doesn't want to be seen by normal society. Just when she thinks there is no hope for it, a proto-John appears. He bears all the markings of a DBA - unkempt hair, very questionable fashion sense, somewhat oblivious to his surroundings, and hugging his laptop bag as if he carries the Crown Jewels within it. We shall call him the Uninformed, for this is what he is...

Perhaps Shiny is perverse. Perhaps something about the hairball awakening has tweaked her mood to the awful. For she accosts this poor man, leaning half out her GhettoMobile window.

Shiny: "Excuse me! Excuse me, sir!"

Uninformed: *jumping slightly, and then staring agog at the female talking to him* "Um, y-y-yeeeees?"

Shiny: *with a sweet smile, for she can tell this man is on edge. even contemplates flashing him briefly to make his day brighter, but decides against it.* "Can you tell me, is this where the Oracle DBA 1 course is being done?"

Uninformed: "Um, y-y-yes, I think it is. That's where I'm going. Now. I'm going there now. To the course."

With that, the man scuttles off. Despite his odd nature, however, Shiny believes him - a big mistake on her part. Having seen no sign of John, and with this supposedly reliable confirmation that this is the location in question, Shiny says, "Alright, then, I'm heading home."

She starts up the car, and pulls away ...

While Shiny has been waiting, John has been wandering around like the brighter sort of lost puppy, looking for any sign that might lead him where he ought to be. Finding none, he approaches the receptionist's desk, where stands a sign which promises there will be a receptionist on duty from 8 am until 5 pm Monday through Friday. Much like the cake, the sign is a lie. There is no receptionist.

John must exit the building, and return to Shiny and the GhettoMobile. Alas, he steps out the door just as the tail-end of the GhettoMobile disappears into traffic.

John: "Curse that woman!" (He denies saying this later, but Shiny does not believe him)

Shiny, meanwhile, begins to wonder. The man, while he answered, didn't seem too sure of his answer. Lacking a cell phone to directly call John, she drives to a gas station and digs up fifty cents in change to make a phone call using a pay phone, only to discover, when she reaches the phone, that these phones take 65 cents to make a call, exact change only, quarters only.

We shall all pause for a WTF moment here.

Moving on.

Shiny shrugs, and determines that her hippy will be fine, and if nothing else, he can leave a message on the home phone for her, which she shall retrieve upon her intrepid return to their abode. Thirty minutes of driving pass, only for Shiny to enter the home and see, oh no, a message light blinking...

John: *on the machine, we're not cool enough to manage to call each other right when we're walking through doors, or magically appear in front of someone* "Hi, honey. I thought you were going to wait. You need to come get me. This is the wrong place."

... Aw, shit. Shiny sets back out. While she drives the thirty minutes BACK TO WHERE SHE WAS, John gets on the phone with Chris, who knows nothing about nothing. He then calls Kathy the HR lady, who is not answering (remember, she divided herself by zero and was sucked into a black hole. They have notoriously poor cell reception). Finally, he calls Jerry, his old boss and still sort of boss. Jerry says, "We'll solve the problem. Let's call Oracle right now while you wait!" And so Jerry, being the good boss he is, manages a conference call while poor John waits outside a strange office building for his wayward girlfriend to return.

Now, remember the part where the e-mail was lacking an event number? Yeah, that's important here. You see, without the event number, the lady they get on the phone at Oracle can tell them nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, less than nothing. By the end of their ten-minute phone conversation, she no longer claims to be associated with Oracle in the faintest fashion, and disavows all knowledge of the witchery box that has strange male voices coming out of it. Jerry promises to get John answers, and tells John to head home in the meantime.

About the time this farce of a phone call ends, Shiny and the GhettoMobile return. John enters, while Shiny hangs her head in shame. For she has failed... failed to wait. Shame, Shiny, shame.

Shiny and John embark on yet another thirty minute trip in the car, having spent (for Shiny at least) the last two hours almost exclusively within said vehicle. John waits, the entire time, for Jerry to call back, and inform him where this course is truly supposed to be. In the home stretch, a half mile from home, there is a man on the side of the road, waving a sign for a tax place, and wearing a Lady Liberty costume, including a styrofoam torch he seems insistent upon hefting.

In a stunning moment of hubris, John and Shiny mock this man, albeit gently, pointing out that while he is paid to stand on the side of the road in women's clothing (essentially, a transvestite hooker minus the sex), John gets a day off from work. Sweet!

As John & Shiny pull into the driveway, John's phone rings. In his haste to answer (fool man), he drops it and drops the call. John & Shiny enter the house, and Shiny decides that the phrase of the day is "Whimsical Fuckery". Once again, an astounding display of hubris. Oh, pride ... thou goeth before ... Well, you all know how it goes.

Just as Shiny posts this, the phone rings again. It is Jerry, with good news. He has determined the location of the course, and wants John there, ASAP! It is three blocks from the previous location.

Whimsical ... Fuckery.

So, once more, John and Shiny load into the vehicle. By the time they approach the intersection where the building hosting said training course should be, it is eleven fifteen. It is time for lunch! So, John and Shiny say to hell with the course, being that it (according to the schedule Jerry has forwarded to John's phone) will be breaking in ten minutes for an hour long lunch, and go to George and Dragon on Central for some delightful om nom noms.

Sitting at the table, glad to finally be out of a vehicle, John and Shiny debate the merits of a slightly alcoholic lunch. After reviewing their options, they determine a White Russian a piece, to accompany their meal, is in high demand. And, after all, since it is made with milk, it's almost like not drinking. So John and Shiny lift a glass to one another, toast, and proceed to sip their way through lunch.

Finally, it is time to return (introduce?) John to the training course that has started this mess. During the ten minute drive to the particular intersection, John clues Shiny in on how much Oracle makes - contracts for $100,000+ PER INSTANCE, plus 20% of total contract fee as an ongoing maintenance fee. Add that to the $3,000 per day per person for training courses, and it is clear that Oracle itself is engaging in a bit of whimsical fuckery.

Shiny and John find the appropriate address, pull in ... and sit confused. For these are not office buildings before them, but restaurants. The Good Egg, various coffee houses, a pizza joint, a Mexican restaurant. Are we sure we have the right address? John and Shiny circle in the GhettoMobile, and finally find the correct suite number. With a heaving sigh of disappointment, for he has sincerely hoped the address does not exist and he can bunk off work for the rest of the day, John disembarks the GhettoMobile with a kiss to Shiny's cheek. As he prepares to enter the suite, Shiny rolls down the window and shouts, "Remember, the phrase of the day is whimsical fuckery!"

And with that, Shiny returns home, having made no less than three roundtrips between her domicile and downtown Phoenix in about as many hours, and chooses to share the tale of woe with all her faithful and erstwhile Companions.

Because, after all, if the phrase of the day is Whimsical Fuckery, everyone should get to engage in a bit of it.

And lord, how Shiny wishes this story weren't true...